Odd-Geir Lyngstad
Vice President of Finance & Investor Relations

Good morning, and welcome to Elkem's First Quarter Results Presentation. My name is Odd-Geir Lyngstad, and I'm responsible for Investor Relations here in Elkem.

To take us through today's agenda, we have CEO, Helge Aasen; and CFO, Morten Viga. Helge will go through the highlights for the quarter, the market update and the outlook for the second quarter. CFO, Morten Viga, will then present Elkem's first quarter results in more detail. We will open for Q&A after Helge and Morten's presentations.

So with that, I give the word to CEO, Helge Aasen.

Helge Aasen
Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Thank you, Odd-Geir, and good morning, everyone. Welcome. Yes, we are expecting to close the sale of the Silicones division to Bluestar today, 30th of April. This transformation will move Elkem towards a more pure-play metals and materials company.

Another goal and the motivation behind this is to sharpen our strategic focus, tighten capital allocation and improve earnings quality. We're also using this opportunity to streamline the organization and cut costs.

And following the transaction, we plan to raise new equity of NOK 1.5 billion through a publicly announced book building process and of course, in order then to strengthen the balance sheet. And this equity offering is guaranteed as previously communicated. In addition, we have secured an offer from our relationship banks for a fully underwritten debt refinancing of EUR 1 billion.

The operational performance in the quarter was hampered by challenging market conditions. Visibility is quite limited. We have to say that due to changing trade regulations